Until I saw this (as part of a captive audience on a bus travelling to Quito), I was probably one of the few people alive who had never seen a Schwarzenegger movie.
I'm still not sure that I've seen one, and not only because the thing was dubbed into Spanish. But going by reputation alone, this film makes you feel you've just seen everything Arnold has ever done, conveniently compressed and amusingly exaggerated and self-parodied to boot. Which can't be bad.
I don't watch low-grade action movies as a rule. Yet even I could at least smile at some of the obvious send-ups and references here, which extend beyond the specific genre of shoot-'em-up action to embrace such things as the cartoon laws of physics or the convention of the villain's "before I kill you, here's what I plan to do" speech which we all know from the Bond films. Not much of the parody is particularly intelligent or subtle (Leslie Nielsen does this kind of thing better), but it is disarmingly good-natured and unserious, and the timing is generally adequate - tired old gag follows mildly amusing in-joke fast enough to make the thing look lively, or even, for some viewers, "stylish" (sic), if not exactly fresh or daring. Plus there are enough two-wheeling, bridge-hopping, exploding cars for your money to make the thing justify its parodic remit.
As far as I can tell, the film scores low with critics who wanted it to take itself a bit more seriously than it obviously does. It's true that the last third of the film seems to come unstuck at a worrying pace, and I agree with whoever it was who found it annoying that the "real world" that Slater strays into begins by frustrating his expectations, as it should, but then, unaccountably, adjusts to them to the point where it allows him to perform an unconscionably silly Heroic Rescue Of Child, complete with undercurrent of schmaltzy sentimentality - one aspect of Hollywood scriptcraft that this movie does not even attempt to take issue with. And yes, the intrusion of Bergman's Grim Reaper at the end is pure toe-curling embarrassment: it reads as "look at me! I've watched a serious movie" self-advertisement on the scriptwriters' part, with no other apparent raison-d'etre. That last chunk of plot is disappointing, and does definitely need a rethink.
So - daring, iconoclastic this movie is certainly not, and no, it doesn't have what you would call a coherent plot, although it might have had, if the scriptwriters hadn't apparently hit the bottle head-on towards the end of what was presumably a six-crate overnight slog. But it's good, harmless fun, and has the odd inspired touch - like the Schwarzenegger version of Hamlet, which I defy any high school English Lit teacher to not find funny.
What surprised me most is that the Governator comes across in this movie as quite a likable, humorous, self-deprecating guy. But maybe that's down to the poor quality of the dubbing. Some scripts do occasionally come out better in Spanish.
I'm still not sure that I've seen one, and not only because the thing was dubbed into Spanish. But going by reputation alone, this film makes you feel you've just seen everything Arnold has ever done, conveniently compressed and amusingly exaggerated and self-parodied to boot. Which can't be bad.
I don't watch low-grade action movies as a rule. Yet even I could at least smile at some of the obvious send-ups and references here, which extend beyond the specific genre of shoot-'em-up action to embrace such things as the cartoon laws of physics or the convention of the villain's "before I kill you, here's what I plan to do" speech which we all know from the Bond films. Not much of the parody is particularly intelligent or subtle (Leslie Nielsen does this kind of thing better), but it is disarmingly good-natured and unserious, and the timing is generally adequate - tired old gag follows mildly amusing in-joke fast enough to make the thing look lively, or even, for some viewers, "stylish" (sic), if not exactly fresh or daring. Plus there are enough two-wheeling, bridge-hopping, exploding cars for your money to make the thing justify its parodic remit.
As far as I can tell, the film scores low with critics who wanted it to take itself a bit more seriously than it obviously does. It's true that the last third of the film seems to come unstuck at a worrying pace, and I agree with whoever it was who found it annoying that the "real world" that Slater strays into begins by frustrating his expectations, as it should, but then, unaccountably, adjusts to them to the point where it allows him to perform an unconscionably silly Heroic Rescue Of Child, complete with undercurrent of schmaltzy sentimentality - one aspect of Hollywood scriptcraft that this movie does not even attempt to take issue with. And yes, the intrusion of Bergman's Grim Reaper at the end is pure toe-curling embarrassment: it reads as "look at me! I've watched a serious movie" self-advertisement on the scriptwriters' part, with no other apparent raison-d'etre. That last chunk of plot is disappointing, and does definitely need a rethink.
So - daring, iconoclastic this movie is certainly not, and no, it doesn't have what you would call a coherent plot, although it might have had, if the scriptwriters hadn't apparently hit the bottle head-on towards the end of what was presumably a six-crate overnight slog. But it's good, harmless fun, and has the odd inspired touch - like the Schwarzenegger version of Hamlet, which I defy any high school English Lit teacher to not find funny.
What surprised me most is that the Governator comes across in this movie as quite a likable, humorous, self-deprecating guy. But maybe that's down to the poor quality of the dubbing. Some scripts do occasionally come out better in Spanish.